


Leaving Harlem?

by Wannabanauthor



Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Guns, Maybe a gunshot wound, You'll Have to Read to Find Out - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 11:36:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14953929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wannabanauthor/pseuds/Wannabanauthor
Summary: After surviving Bushmaster's attempt on her life, Mariah begins to question Shades's loyalty.





	Leaving Harlem?

**Author's Note:**

> It's been awhile since I've written one of these, but I'm back for the occasional fic!

Mariah had Mama Mabel’s gun resting on her thigh when Shades walked into her home.

He looked panicked when he hurriedly shut the door behind him and locked it.

“We need to leave Harlem,” Shades said.

“No, you need to leave Harlem,” Mariah said and pointed the gun at him.

Shades froze and put his hands up. “Mariah, what’s going on? What are you doing?”

“What I should have done from the moment you saw me standing over Cornell’s body,” she said and cocked the gun. “You’re working with Bushmaster.”

Shades lowered his hands. “It’s not what you think. I’m still loyal to you.”

“You’re loyal to no one but yourself. You’ve made that perfectly clear since the moment you came into town claiming that you wanted to help Cornell.” She swallowed the pain in her heart. It was not welcome here.

“I was working with Bushmaster to protect you,” Shades said. He took off his sunglasses and looked her in the eyes.

“I would believe you, but I know you better than that. You align yourself with whomever is primed for the throne.” She stood and took a step towards him. Her gun hand did not waver.

Shades’s face softened, and he moved closed to her. “You don’t believe me.”

“Give me one reason. I know you don’t have any up your sleeve,” Mariah replied.

“I have a reason.” He got even closer to her and reached out to take the gun.

Mariah fired.

Shades stiffened. He looked down at his arm and studied the graze.

“That was my warning shot. The next one will put you in Spurlock’s crematorium.”

Shades looked at her, his mask back in place. “All those nights we spent together, and you still think I would betray you.”

Mariah gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, honey, getting between my thighs is not an emotional milestone with me. I learned a long time ago that men think they own you once they have a taste.”

She pressed the gun against Shades’s chest. “Did you really think that just because you fucked me meant that I felt something for you? Even you know better than that.”

“We did more than sleep together,” Shades said. “We talked. Some nights for hours. We went out to dinner more times than I can count, and we ran a business together.”

“I don’t think you feel something for me,” he continued. “I know you do. Your hand and your voice may not be shaking, but your eyes tell me a different story.”

How dare he? After everything he had done to her, he was now rubbing it in her face. She hit him in the face with the pistol, drawing blood from his lip.

Shades’s mask slipped. His eyes looked watery, as if he was in pain.

“Save me the crocodile tears. I just survived arson. No thanks to you nor my daughter.”

“She was working with Bushmaster, and I was just there to spy on him and make sure I could keep you safe. I knew he was going to burn you alive, and I-”

“Did nothing!” Mariah shouted, holding her own tears back. “Luke Cage, out of all people, was the one to rescue me. When push came to shove, I couldn’t even rely on the man who promised me that he wanted me to win.”

“Check my phone,” Shades said. “You’ll see I’m not lying.”

Mariah took it from his jacket pocket and held it in her hand. She scrolled through his texts and phone calls, and a strange number appeared several times on his call logs. There was one outgoing call that was placed right before the fire.

She called it and kept an eye on Shades.

“She’s alive,” came Luke Cage’s angry voice. “Stop calling me, or you’re going to blow your cover.” The line went dead.

Mariah lowered the gun. “Explain. You don’t have personal attachments, so why would you ask Luke Cage to save me?”

Shades looked at her curiously. A bit odd for someone with a bloody lip and bullet graze on his arm.

“You still don’t remember me?” he asked.

“I tried to turn a blind eye to Mama Mabel’s dealings back then, and Cornell pulled away from me when he was young. By the time he was a teen, he was already lost to me,” Mariah said.

“My father wasn’t the nicest person. One day, this kid picked on me at school, and I went berserk. Mama Mabel came to pick him up, and she saw that the bruises on my face were a week old. From then on, the only bruises I had were from school fights. Cornell let me hang around, and sometimes you would be at the house. You gave me my first pair of sunglasses to hide my black eye.”

Mariah closed her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. It was a trick. It had to be.

She knew Shades. Shades only looked out for himself. He might be along for the ride with her, but he didn’t really care for her.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“To leave Harlem with you. To keep you safe. No matter what I do or say, always know that I owe a debt to you and your family.” Shades reached out to touch her, but she stepped away from him.

“I shot you.”

“More of a graze. We can discuss this all later. We need to leave. Bushmaster knows that you survived the fire, and only a handful of people knew about the plan. He has to suspect me.”

Mariah was flustered and couldn’t think clearly. “What do we do?”

“Pack a bag with all the essentials. We leave in five minutes.”

Mariah was grateful she had actually packed a go bag in case of a scenario like this. She kept her gun. Shades might have saved her life, but he also had kept her in the dark.

When they made it to the town line, Shades stopped the car.

“What are you doing?” Mariah asked. When she turned to look at Shades, he had a gun pointed at her.

“Get out of the car,” he ordered. “You can reach for your gun, but I am quick shot.”

Mariah stepped out of the car and left her bag in the backseat. She reckoned she wouldn’t need it for very long.

Shades kept the gun trained on her as he joined her outside.

Mariah was so filled with rage, she didn’t notice the bag in his free hand at first.

“You have everything you need in here to start a new life,” Shades said. “I suggest you take it and leave Harlem, for good.”

Mariah stared at him hard. “No.”

Shades fired the gun. The bullet whizzed past her head. She didn’t even flinch.

“Either leave on your own, or I’ll have to shoot you, and then you’ll be forced to leave Harlem anyway.”

“I particularly loved the line about you owing a debt to my family. Very clever,” she replied. “You’re making a mistake. You know I will do everything in my power to hunt you down and kill you for this.”

“It’ll take you awhile,” Shades said. “Until then, you’ll be out of Harlem, and Bushmaster won’t need to come after you.”

Mariah scoffed. “Have you deluded yourself into thinking that this will protect me?”

“It’s either this or you die, and I’d rather not see you die,” Shades said and holstered his gun.

Mariah didn’t know whether to be angry or touched. A part of her wanted to believe that he was doing this to keep her safe. That there was a part of him that actually cared for her.

“Hernan Alvarez, this is far from over,” Mariah said and walked over to me. He pulled his gun out and pointed it at her.

“Leave, Mariah,” he said.

She stared him in the eyes. “Do it. Shoot me. I’d rather die than leave Harlem to that monster.”

“Don’t make me do it,” Shades pleaded.

Yes, she quite liked him begging. He was starting to break.

“Did my daughter ever tell you who her father was? Or why I gave her to someone else to raise?” Mariah asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Mariah had been saving this back-pocket lie for a while. Lucky for her that timing was close enough to plant a seed of doubt.

“Remember how much Cornell looked up to my Uncle Pete, but how Pete’s eyes lingered on me for a little too long?”

“No,” Shades whispered. Now he was the shaken one.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were fucking her just like you did me. Can you imagine?” she said with a laugh. “My Uncle Pete screwing me from beyond the grave, even after I gave him a daughter.”

“I’m trying to save your life, Mariah!” he said.

“My life is not worth living if I leave Harlem. I have worked too hard and suffered too much to give it all up now. Either shoot me or help me reclaim my city.”

Shades lowered his gun. “You’re going to die if you don’t leave.”

“You care about me,” Mariah said. Not a question nor a statement. A revelation.

“I love you.”

Mariah pulled him in for a kiss. “Then help me regain control of Harlem.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so tempted to write a prequel showing their lives as lovers who didn't really trust each other to their slowburn love.


End file.
